


free under the stars

by bluebeholder



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Missing Scene, Sharing Body Heat, Snake Senses, With Angsty Overtones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 19:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17127110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: After their escape from the circus, Nagini and Credence sit on a rooftop under the stars. Nagini thinks about some things she's never thought about before: peace, freedom, and a future.Also, it's extremely cold. They might want to do something about that.





	free under the stars

**Author's Note:**

> Missing scene from Crimes of Grindelwald: the night after the circus exploded, and before the rest of Paris exploded. 
> 
> I meant for this to be fluffy but some of my critique of Credence's character snuck in here and that made it...a little less fluffy. I hope it's still good anyway.

Nagini remembers their escape in fragments, remembers things in flashes of brilliant light and sound. The circus tent collapsing, the beasts roaring and rampaging, the ringmaster shouting, spells going off in flashes of light and sound like fireworks on the streets…

And Credence’s hand warm in hers as they ran, ran side by side out of the circus and vanished into the alleys of Paris. She remembers tripping over the hem of her dress, caught by Credence’s strong arms; she remembers Credence turning back to look behind them at the chaos and wrenching him onward, out into the night.

It’s been perhaps an hour since they fled the circus, running full-tilt lost into the Parisian streets. A plan is in place to look for Credence’s mother, but that will be tomorrow. Tonight, they have to find somewhere to hide, somewhere to be safe.

The night air on the streets is cold, and it’s not long before Nagini is shivering uncontrollably. Her lips are turning blue with cold, and her hands are going numb. Snakes are cold-blooded and, though Nagini is not a snake yet, she still struggles with cold. It gets worse every winter.

But she doesn’t think about that.

Credence, pragmatic as ever, takes the blanket from a covered street-corner stall, leaving the wares beneath to freeze in the cold so that Nagini can wrap it around herself. Well—no, Credence carefully folds it around her shoulders, tucking it so that it doesn’t take too much effort to hold, and covers all the skin exposed by her open-collared dress.

“We have to find somewhere warm for you,” Credence says, brow furrowed with worry.

“And you,” Nagini says, shivering.

“Mostly you,” Credence says. He smiles at her. It’s a quick thing, a fragile smile that doesn’t quite belong on his solemn face, but it summons up a smile from her all the same.

Side by side they make their way through the cold streets. Nagini, despite the cold, can’t help but feel joy bubbling up inside her. She’s _free_. If she freezes to death tonight, then she froze to death outside of the circus and that she wouldn’t trade for the world.

After perhaps an hour of walking through empty night streets, Credence sighs and stops. “It’s no use,” he says. “Nowhere is open and we can’t just hide in an abandoned building, it’ll be just as cold.”

“Then what do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

Nagini looks up at the roofs, thinking, and her eyes catch a plume of smoke from a chimney. It’s thin and wispy, but the clear idea eventually emerges through her cold, dizzy mind. “We should go on the roofs,” she says.

Credence looks askance. “Are you all right…? It’ll be even colder up there.”

“No, no,” Nagini says. She points at the chimney. “That should be warm, right?”

“…you know, I think so,” Credence says slowly. He looks around. There’s no one in sight. “Hold my hand tight, all right?”

Nagini nods and takes his hand. He’s so _warm_ and she drifts toward him a bit, seeking his body heat. Even a step closer and she can feel how warm he really is. She’s always been sensitive to heat, too.

All at once, she and Credence are lifting off the ground. Nagini stares down, surprised but not afraid. She went up in one of those enchanted bubbles once, when she was younger,  and she’s always had a head for heights. What makes her more curious is—

“Where did you learn to fly?” she asks as she and Credence land on the roof.

He looks away and shakes his head. “I don’t think we should talk about it now,” he says. Nagini presses her lips together in annoyance, but there’s no real point to arguing when it feels like her hands are going to fall right off.

They pad quietly across the roof, placing their feet carefully so as not to disturb any of the occupants of the house below. The chimney draws Nagini’s senses and, when she finally crouches down beside it, she nearly melts with relief. It’s not much heat, but it’s more than enough to warm her chilled body and she presses close to the bricks.

“Are you all right?” Credence asks, sitting down close to her.

Nagini nods. “I’m fine,” she says. She closes her eyes and rests her head against the chimney.

Credence is quiet for a little while. Nagini listens to the night noises of Paris and thinks about where to go from here. She could go…anywhere, really, anywhere in the wide-open world. Though, in this cold, she has to admit that she’d prefer something a little more tropical.

Tomorrow she’s going to shed this dress. She’ll leave her circus skin behind and find a new dress, something normal like other women wear. Nagini’s not sure she wants to cut off all her hair to be fashionable with a bob, but she’s seen women all the time with “nervous bobs” that would be just about the right style, at least to try.

Either way, tomorrow she’s going to be someone new. Someone _better_.

She’s jolted back to reality by Credence’s voice. “Tomorrow we’ll have to work fast,” he says.

“Work fast?”

“People will be looking for us,” he says. Nagini opens her mouth, about to speak, but he goes on. “We have to find that address before _we’re_ found.”

Nagini closes her mouth. Credence’s eyes are distant and a little hard. In this new light, under the clear stars of the Parisian sky, Nagini takes a good long look at him, as if for the first time. He’s still handsome, breathtaking, and her heart still does funny things looking at him. But now, somehow, he seems distant. He’s not looking at her, like he had when she was behind those iron bars; he’s looking out at the horizon.

Sitting there, looking at Credence, Nagini wonders if perhaps they’re working toward two different goals. She’d only ever wanted to get out. Credence could have left any time. He’d waited for her, helped set her free, but it’s not even been two hours since and he’s already…moving away. And it’s clear that he’s expecting her to follow.

Some instinct tells her that raising the question of new clothes or a new direction out of Paris won’t be very welcome right now, so Nagini keeps her mouth shut. She turns and looks back up at the stars instead, thinking of what she’ll do once they get far away. Somehow she’ll find her way to somewhere tropical, somewhere good for a snake to live.

At some point maybe she’ll make her peace with having to be a snake at all.

“We should get some sleep,” she says at last.

Finally, Credence looks at her. “We should,” he says. Hesitantly, he opens his arm. “It’s not…very appropriate, but it’s…cold.”

Nagini looks at him for a long moment. Then she scoots closer to lean against Credence’s side. His arm settles around her shoulders, even warmer than the blanket, and Nagini relaxes. She puts aside thoughts and worries about Credence’s character. He’s with her, and he’s safe, and he’s warm. That, for tonight, is enough.

As Nagini drifts off, she finds herself smiling. She is free. For the first time in her life, she is _free_.

No matter where this path leads, Nagini will do anything to stay that way.

**Author's Note:**

> COOL SNAKE SENSES AHOY.
> 
> Nagini’s snake form is a python. Along with being cold-blooded, these snakes? HAVE HEAT-SEEKING CAPABILITIES. A row of heat pits are located along a python’s lips on the top and bottom jaw, and are able to sense slight changes in ambient temperature. Other wizards closely associated with animals in the HP-verse (Animagi and werewolves come to mind) often acquire some of the characteristics of their alternate form. Why would a Maledictus, a being that is _literally turning into the creature_ , not get an even cooler version of that?
> 
> You have to give her some perks. 
> 
> As for the hair: 
> 
> Obviously, short bobbed hair was all the rage in the 1920s. It was a symbol of a liberated woman, THE style for modern ladies everywhere, and very much In. However…if you did it, and were in certain professions, you might well find yourself _fired from your job_ for having such a risqué cut. Social ostracization was a barrier to this style, too. 
> 
> For the woman who wanted to be fashionable but socially acceptable, the solution was to create a faux bob (the “nervous bob”). No one’s sure if that’s a period-accurate term but, because I really liked it and could imagine someone saying it in the 1920s. To keep it simple, a nervous bob requires brushing out long hair, folding or curling it under itself (sometimes by use of a braid) and securing it with half a million bobby pins. This effectively creates an illusion of short hair without having to make the style permanent.


End file.
